


HEY MAN I LOVE YOU BUT NO FUCKING WAY

by Princex_N



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Difficult Decisions, Episode: s04e01 Welcome to Korea, Gen, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22608700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: Trapper has his orders home. Hawkeye isn't back yet.A decision has to be made, Trapper just isn't sure if he can make the right one.
Relationships: "Trapper" John McIntyre & Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Comments: 7
Kudos: 49





	HEY MAN I LOVE YOU BUT NO FUCKING WAY

**Author's Note:**

> title from [The Front Bottom's song "Twin Size Mattress"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWJUk65EnQM) because no part of me heard those lyrics and couldn't not think about this episode

Hawkeye doesn't come back until tomorrow afternoon, and Radar tells Trapper that if he doesn't leave tomorrow morning that there won't be another flight he can take back for almost two weeks. 

It's one of the hardest decisions Trapper has ever had to make. 

He knows that Hawkeye would do it. He's just that kind of guy; Hawkeye would absolutely stick around in the hell of Korea another two weeks just to spend five minutes to give Trapper a proper goodbye. He probably wouldn't even hesitate. 

Trapper just doesn't know if _he's_ that kind of guy. 

It's not as if Trapper doesn't care. If he didn't, then this would be easy. Hawkeye is one of the best friends Trapper has ever had, the guy who could joke around like nobody's business but still be the exact kind of dependable to help you through whatever hell you're embroiled in, the reason Trapper hadn't turned mean and cold and broken here. No part of Trapper ever wanted to take that for granted. He _cares_ , there's no denying it. 

And yet. 

Hawkeye's caring is so fundamentally _different_. He loves so easily, cares so much about things, he's always getting attached. He holds onto things and takes care of them; that ragged robe and fractured martini glasses and socks that are more darning than fabric - too young and innocent company clerks, drafted and indecisive colonels, and cheating and alcoholic doctors alike. 

Hawkeye cares, and Trapper thought he could match that intensity. Thought he understood well enough to be there for Hawkeye the same way that Hawkeye was there for him. Thought he cared _enough_ for it to make things work even in the worst situations. 

Judging by the way these scales are balanced right now, it looks like he might have been wrong. 

He tries to write it out, unsure if he's making a list of pros and cons for himself, or writing a proper goodbye to Hawkeye, or maybe just a collection of scattered excuses that both of them know are weak no matter how you look at them. None of it seems good enough, because Trapper is good for a joke but he's always been shit at words when they really matter, and all of them seem to pale in the face of the decision he's making. 

(There is no 'right' decision, not really. The looks everyone in camp are giving him as he paces around indecisively are pitying, but not judgmental. He knows that the only one this angry at him for this is himself, but somehow that's not enough to get him to stop packing.) 

Hawkeye would stay. He would write a letter, at least. Might even steal a jeep and run off to Tokyo on his own just to try and have it both ways. He's just that kind of guy. 

(It never seems to matter to him how many times it leaves him brokenhearted. Shattered to bits over the death of a childhood friend on his own operating table, delirious on exhaustion and tearing himself to pieces over a war he had no hand in starting nor any chance of stopping, dragging himself through the agony of losing Henry so poorly that even Frank and Houlihan had agreed to give him a break. One of these days Hawkeye isn't going to be able to put those pieces back together. Trapper thinks that Hawkeye knows it and just doesn't care, or maybe it's more accurate to say that he cares so much that he'd call it worth the risk.) 

(Trapper hopes that this is not that breaking point.) 

(The threat of it still isn't stopping him.) 

Trapper isn't even sure if he knows for sure what he's decided. He packs, sure, but the choice is tearing at him so deeply that it feels like it could still go either way. Like he'll grow a spine and realize it all at once, and unpack with just enough time to spare that Hawkeye would never know what he had considered at all. 

But Radar wakes him up, reluctantly asks if he's going to go, because there's a jeep just about to leave that's headed to Kimpo, and Trapper is on his feet before he can think about it, and that's a decision made right there, isn't it?

He thinks about a letter but there isn't any time, thinks about one more last ditch phone call (it might even get through this time, if Hawkeye is back at the right hotel to pack in order to make it back here, it _might_ ) but it feels too intimidating, thinks about calling it quits and just sticking around once and for all, but he doesn't. 

Trapper gives Radar a peck on the cheek and asks him to pass it along, and Radar's nose wrinkles slightly but mostly he just looks sad. Radar says goodbye and wishes him luck, and he means it, but Trapper knows that they're both thinking the same thing: 

Hawkeye would stick around. He's just that kind of guy. 

Turns out Trapper isn't. 

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](http://www.princex-n.tumblr.com)


End file.
